This paper investigates the impact of food prices on children’s cognitive development by exploiting historical price and census data in the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century United States. I explicitly model the relationships among food prices, nutrition, and cognitive development for both non-farm and farm households and use the model to motivate my empirical strategy. My empirical results confirm that there exist statistically significant differences between the two types of households in terms of the partial effects of food prices on children’s cognitive development. Using the preferred specification of this paper, I find that on average, a 1% increase in food price level reduces children’s probability of literacy by 0.44% for non-farm households and 0.37% for farm households; the average food price effect for farm households is 5/6 of that for non-farm households, after controlling for nonfood prices, household wages, demographic characteristics, household environments, and agricultural production inputs. These results send an important message to policymakers who want to address childhood nutrition and cognitive skill issues in developing countries-policy prescriptions need to take the population composition into consideration.

The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) provides extensive information on how Americans spend their time, and has been of particular interest to economists, sociologists, and other researchers. Researchers have sought to study commuting behavior using the ATUS, but its stock time use measures do not measure commuting satisfactorily. This package provides Stata code to implement the previously described trip tour methodology, constructing an appropriate measure of commuting from ATUS activity-level files.

Segregation in the American education system continues to pose issues for our country, but in particular for students who are currently studying in American schools. Although housing policy and transportation policy has been cited and studied as contributors to the segregation, education policy and the real-estate market has had less of a spotlight. This essay attempts to explain how the individual choices which led to suburbanization, “white-flight” and “shopping for schools” has contributed to the persisting racial segregation of the American education system. I evaluate the failure of busing as a method of desegregation and propose the method of building magnet schools in urban areas as the better solution.

Flooding has become a problem of national proportion and many scholars have started to take note of the human impacts in this area. This study will focus on the social vulnerability framework in tandem with the environmental justice theoretical frameworks being applied to Polk County Iowa so that information can be added to the body of works within a Midwestern U.S. context. This research will contribute to the current geographical knowledge in natural hazards, environmental justice, and vulnerability to flood hazards. Taking into consideration the scarcity of county or sub-county studies in the Midwest U.S. measuring spatial tendencies in hazards vulnerability, this thesis is fitting. This study examines Polk County Iowa for social vulnerability factors present today to the natural disaster of flooding and then looks longitudinally back to 1990 to see if similar individual variables were also prominent historically. This study utilizes block group census level data and creates from it a social vulnerability index (SoVI) following Cutter et al. (2003). The study then used FEMA flood risk level boundaries and the 100-year floodplain to create a comparison of vulnerability of higher flood risk areas and lower risk areas to see if exposure to flood prone areas coincides with an increase or decrease in social vulnerability. Findings of statistical tests and the bivariate choropleth map of the study area suggest that Polk County exhibits a spatial vulnerability paradox, where the persons most socially vulnerable do not necessarily always preside in the source area for flooding. Interestingly enough the study suggests that risk capable and risk resilient populations live in some of the most physically risky places. An examination of specific individual vulnerability factors from the present and historically in 1990 give the same picture of spatial paradoxical vulnerability, leading many variables to . . .

Background: Time shared with a partner is an indicator of marital well-being and couples want to spend time together. However, time spent with a partner depends on work and family arrangements as well as on the policies, norms, and values that prevail in society. In contrast to time spent with children, couples shared time is underresearched in a cross-national context. Previous studies from specific countries show that dual-earner couples spend less time together and that parents spend less time alone with each other. Objective: The aim of our study is to investigate partnered parents shared time across countries to understand how social conditions, cultural norms, and policy contexts are related to the amount and nature of couples shared time. Specifically, we compare time spent with a partner in the United States, France, and Spain. Methods: Studying data from national time use surveys conducted in the United States, France, and Spain, we extract information about who undertakes certain activities in order to examine three types of time shared with a partner for parents with children under age 10: total time with a partner indicates the minutes per day spent in the presence of a partner, exclusive time corresponds to the minutes per day spent alone with a partner when no one else is present, and family time indicates the minutes per day spent with a partner and a child at the same time. Results: Our results show that US couples spend the least time together and Spanish couples spend the most time together. Parents in France spend the most time alone with each other. The most striking difference across countries is in time with a partner and children, which is much higher among Spanish families. Conclusions: The constraints of paid work explain a small part of the differences in couples shared time observed between countries. Differences in couples shared time across countries seem to be related to social norms surrounding family and general time use. Contribution: Examination of couples shared time in cross-national context is unexplored. By examining cross-national variation in work and family demands on parents time with a partner in three countries - the United States, Spain, and France - each with different social and policy contexts as well as cultural norms about the desire to spend more or less time with a partner, this research begins to fill the current void in the literature.

This report examines wages and working conditions for Californias EMTs and paramedics, and provides context on the industry and governance of the states EMS system.

An understanding of the freedoms (or the lack of freedoms) and their economic consequences on early black Americans provides an informative understanding to the freedoms (or the lack of freedoms), and their economic consequences on other, modern ethnic groups. James Curtis Jr (2017) investigates the link between the social asymmetry and economic asymmetry among early blacks and whites in the United States of America. For the empirical study, James Curtis Jr. (2017) uses cross-sectional variables from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample (IPUMS), developed informative conditional ratios, and employed least squares statistical analyses.

Despite the miracle of a dramatic increase in economic performance in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), researchers are becoming increasingly concerned with income distribution and income inequality in China. Indeed, people have witnessed this growing inequality in the past two decades, and the tendency is towards a further increase. In this paper, a basic and standard human capital model is examined to understand this evolution of socio-demographic characteristics, which appear to be the reason for the widened gap of wage differential within China’s labor market, especially after the educational expansion in 1999. Based on survey data from the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) conducted in 1995 and 2013, I decompose the difference in variance of the logarithm of wages into 1) endowment effect; 2) price effect; and 3) the unobserved effects and carry out micro-simulation technique to explain the evolution of wage inequality during that period. The results suggest that educational expansion targeting higher educational levels does not have an equalizing effect, although such a great change in the distribution of education can accelerate the pace of economic development. However, it could also generate unpredictable pressure on China’s labor market and work in reverse to policy expectations.

Existing research has established that occupations are associated with mortality, even after adjusting for income and education. But prior work has not considered whether occupational prestige or occupational socioeconomic status (i.e., pecuniary resources and human capital) are more consequential for the risk of death. We test hypotheses related to status and SES pathways, with data from the 1986-1994 cross-sections of the National Health Interview Survey, linked to prospective mortality through the end of 2011 via the Linked Mortality File. In general, we find that both occupational prestige and occupational SES are linked to the risk of death, albeit with some differences by sex. Our results suggest that occupation has two distinct dimensions that each have consequences for mortality in the US population.

The national economy is entering its thirty-third quarter of an expansion, and there are few signs that the economy will slow down anytime soon. Most macro-based measures are positive. These include second-quarter gross domestic product growth of 3.1 percent, national unemployment unchanged at 4.4 percent, and 222,000 jobs added in June (577,000 for the quarter), well above the year-to-date average of 180,000. Even so, the limited number of available workers in such a tight . . .

Recent spatial econometric contributions call for empirical models to be more often derived from spatial theory and W matrices to be more closely related to actual inter-regional linkages. This manuscript answers this call by reviewing some of the latest developments and suggesting future research venues along these lines. All examples are based on the regional knowledge production function literature as enormous advances focusing on the spatial nature of the dynamics at work have taken place sinces Griliches (Bell J Econ 10(1):92116, 1979) seminal but aspatial contribution. Furthermore, this literature offers several examples of spatial weight matrices that offer innovative ways to account for the nature, magnitude, asymmetry and directionality of inter-regional (knowledge) spillovers. We foresee that other exciting regional science topics will follow this path.

In this paper, I investigate demand for United States immigrant visas. I use the “Green Card Marriage” as my measure of demand for immigrant visas. Using the American Community Survey, I identify individuals who marry in they same year that they immigrate to the United States as Green Card marriage participants. I find that demand for spousal immigrant visas is significantly associated with economic conditions, indicating that marriage decisions between foreign-born individuals and United States citizens are often influenced by desire to immigrate to the United States on the part of the foreignborn spouse. I find evidence that wage and unemployment rate are central determinants of the demand for spousal immigrant visas from a country. Curiously, it seems that individuals are more likely to immigrate on a spousal visa if the wage in their country is higher and unemployment is higher, while also being more inclined to immigrate if the wage in the United States is higher and unemployment is lower. The increased rate of immigration may be indicative of cost barriers to migration. In addition to the effects of economic conditions on immigration to the United States, I find that countries with qualities that facilitate either contact or cultural compatibility with the United States are likely to send more spousal visa immigrants. Together, the results of this paper indicate that spousal visas are currently used as a vehicle for economically motivated immigration to the United States.

State and local governments are seeking to expand preschool programs for lowincome children and to enroll an increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse population. To ensure that expanded preschools equitably serve populations who are currently under-represented in current preschool programs, policymakers must understand the contexts that influence parents’ enrollment decisions. This set of three mixed-methods studies examines the influence of inter-racial and inter-ethnic group relations on the preschool enrollment decisions of black and Hispanic parents in a region experiencing a burgeoning Hispanic population. Paper 1: Historic and contemporary studies provide evidence that racial and ethnic relations affect parents’ selection in to and out of schools in the K-12 education context. However, no study examines whether racial and ethnic group relations . . . .

While scholars have noted that The War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted Black and Latino communities, we have little understanding as to how spatial patterns of prosecution and sentencing drive these inequalities. This article explores the geography of race in drug prosecutions by examining the role of neighborhood racial/ethnic and other demographic characteristics on sentencing outcomes for drug defendants in Sacramento, CA. We examine both the rate and length of sentences by block group. Specifically, we first estimate models for the number of prison, jail, and probation or fine sentences as rates per population and as rates per filing. We find that felony drug defendants in Black neighborhoods are penalized after filing through an increased rate of prison sentences per filing, although they do indicate a higher but not statistically significant rate of sentences per population as well. On the other hand, initial patterns of filing primarily drive sentencing in Latino neighborhoods. While the rate of prison and probation sentences differs based on the racial and ethnic neighborhood composition, it largely does not impact sentence length.

This guide is designed to provide a demographic snapshot of Georgia’s colleges at the outset of the 2017-2018 school year, with insight into the forces that shape Georgia’s approach to higher education policy. This booklet documents the various needs filled by Georgia’s colleges, from urban research universities to rural technical schools. You’ll find it is rich with facts and figures to help you better understand the students enrolled in Georgia’s colleges, how Georgia funds higher education, as well as barriers to graduation.

How readily do potential migrants respond to changes in the returns to migration? When there are fixed migration costs, potential migrants can fail to respond to increased migration returns. We explore these issues in the context of migration to the U.S., the worlds largest migration destination. We exploit exogenous variation in the returns to migration due to natural disasters (in particular, hurricanes), which reduce the attractiveness of origin locations. We examine heterogeneity in the response to hurricanes with respect to the size of previous U.S. migrant stocks from the same country. Our analysis uses restricted-access U.S. Census data, allowing improved migration stock and flow estimates and inclusion of small hurricane-prone countries. Our results suggest that networks of prior migrants help reduce immigration barriers, making migration more responsive to the returns to migration. Hurricanes cause immediate increases in U.S. immigration, with the effect concentrated among countries with larger pre-existing stocks of U.S. immigrants. Analysis of administrative immigration data reveals that a key role played by migrant networks is formally sponsoring relatives for legal, permanent immigration.

This paper investigates the relation between the presence of organized crime and the technology level in north Italy. Our analysis proposes two provincial indexes. The first portrays technology at a fine-grained industrial sector level. The second describes mafia-type organizations in line with the investigation approach currently used by Italian National Antimafia Directorate (DNA) and Antimafia District Directorates (DDAs). With these indexes, we provide empirical evidence that in north Italy, the larger the presence of organized crime, the less innovation and the technological level of the industrial fabric. Our reading of this finding is that without organized crime, Nature selects agents according to their capacity to innovate. Instead, with organized crime, agents can choose an alternative strategy: relate with organized crime, which hinders innovation. Modelling the interaction innovation - relation with mafias by evolutionary game theory, we show that the presence of organized crime, through natural selection, leads to low levels of technology. Our model also shows how to use sanctions and indemnities to address the problem.

The dramatic rise and sustained participation of recent cohorts of women in the labor force has coincided with their increased attachment to the labor market. In this paper we use twelve waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2014) and investigate how married couples belonging to more recent birth cohorts compare with their predecessors in terms of coordinating their retirement decisions. Using a multinomial logit model we estimate the labor force dynamics of dual-earner married couples and find that couples with wives belonging to more recent birth cohorts are less likely to jointly exit the labor force. Further, this declining cohort trend in joint retirement can only partially be explained by commonly observed socio-economic, employment, and health related factors that affect retirement decisions, suggesting an important role for cohort changes in preferences and social norms such as preference for work and attitudes toward gender roles.

This paper uses economic measures of behavior to examine the validity of the line drawn between individuals inside and outside the labor force, particularly between the unemployed and those outside the labor force. If labor force states are indistinguishable, the unemployment rate is open to interpretation. Our findings suggest that labor force statuses are distinct for mature adults and less distinct for teenagers. However, among mature adults, the degree of distinctiveness varies by race and ethnicity. Since 1990, there has been increased instability between the labor force statuses of the unemployed and those outside the labor force in some groups.

We use U.S. Congressional voting roll call data as well as U.S. Census data from 1990-2000 to examine the voting behaviour of the House of Representatives on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Specifically, we investigate the impact of economic vulnerability of their constituents to free trade with Mexico on the Representatives’ voting decision. Using a weighted local average tariff of each Congressional District as a measure of its vulnerability, we find a strong and significant effect even with the presence of other controls. This allows us to conclude that Representatives did base their votes on the anticipated economic effect on their constituencies. This suggests that politicians are aware of and take into account directly the economic impact of trade legislation on the citizens they represent, and to a greater degree than factors such as personal ideology, party affiliation and political contributions. We also find a lack of significant relationship between local vulnerability and labour contributions